


The Years We Were Apart

by Caenea



Series: The Winterfell Reunions [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Emotions, F/M, Features My Featherbed, He flips her, Language, Not timeline-compliant with other Winterfell Reunions, Season 7 compliant, She flips him, They get a little preoccupied, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 15:27:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12135417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caenea/pseuds/Caenea
Summary: Gendry reflects on Arya as he carries a warhammer back to Winterfell inscribed with his family sigil.





	The Years We Were Apart

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t stop myself. Inspired by the works “The King Comes Home” and “The Blacksmith’s Assassin” (Winterfell Reunions) and develops on how Gendry went from “You’d be m’lady” to “I am Robert Baratheon’s bastard son and our dad’s were pals so by God, I am good enough for her now.” In this story, Gendry went back to Dragonstone after the events beyond the Wall, and follows the happenings of aired episodes of Season 7 – meaning for the purposes of this story, he has not yet been reunited with Arya.

The Kingsroad is a cold and forbidding place, and in all his life Gendry has never been so far north. The closest he got to North was Harranhal, and he thought he wouldn’t ever make it any further, but here he is, past Moat Cailin on the Kingsroad and half-way between it and Winterfell. The snow here comes up to nearly his knees in some of the drifts. He tightens his grip on the warhammer, the stag he embossed it with flashing in the dull light that promises more snow. He had to leave it with Tormund when they were balls-deep in shit beyond the wall, when he ran all the way from battle to wall to plead for help and he hadn’t liked it. That was his, damnit, one of the only things in the entire world that was his.

 

The warhammer had been a test of skill at first. When he first decided to start making it in his free time at the shop, it hadn’t been any more than a test to see if he could still do the big work. Hours and hours and days and weeks of melting steel and hammering the point out and flattening the head. Hours of painstaking, careful moulding to model the stag, hours of work to make the stag anchor to the hammerhead. Uncountable burns and bruises and bashed fingers as he poured the steel and hammered the shape and blew the bellows up to hellish temperatures to keep the steel soft enough to work with. And every second of it was worth it, because now he carries the sigil of his father and wears his colours.

 

Every scorched tunic and every bead of sweat the forge’s heat wrung from him went into the hammer, went into each blow of its creation. He made himself his weapon, a weapon to match his heart – blunt and strong. And when he picked it up for the first time, he tried not to hear the voice in his head that told him _“you’re practising for a fight. You should practise right.”_

 

The little voice that whispers those words to him is accompanied by its own memories, memories that physically hurt to recall and shame him back into feeling like a lowborn bastard boy with no prospects. Gendry never thought about her when he dreamt the warhammer up, he never thought of her as he spent so long over it. But when it was done and he saw the sigil he had placed so prominently upon it, he had to turn his back on it.

 

It was a long time after it was finished before he’d pick it up again. He told himself he’d made it as a test of skill, so he should use it to advertise his services, so he lashed it to the door outside his shop, hiding the stag against the wood. Plenty of men came in after that, wanting to buy it. Gendry would only shake his head, and explain that it wasn’t meant for use, just for show. But, if the lord would like, Gendry could make one of his own, yes, and even put his sigil on it for him. The warhammers were never his biggest seller, they were show pieces more than weapons for most. Men brought them as a symbol of their strength, not as a test or proof of it. And with things the way they were, most people wanted sword and shield, not fanciful hammers. It’s a sign of a man with more money than sense if he buys a weapon he’s no intention of using.

 

The hammer stayed outside a long time then, while war dragged on and word came that five kings had become four, then three, then two. Then one day a customer had to mention it, not to buy it, but to tell him the leather of the handle was unravelling. It was a poor advertisement, showing people his leather didn’t hold, so after he closed for the day he’d climbed up outside the shop and cut the hammer free of its bindings. He had tried not to notice that as he cut it down and hefted the thing in his arms, he was humming under his breath. He had carried the hammer back inside and examined the leather wrapped around the shaft of the thing. Too long exposed to rain and wind, the glue he’d used had rotted away and the leather was indeed starting to peel.

 

He’d stayed awake all that night, experimenting with glues and heat and water, until finally he had worked out that if he glued the leather into place and then exposed the leather to intense, dry heat, it would dry out and shrink, tightening around the wooden handle. More hours of work, more sweat. He polished it as dawn was breaking, sitting in his doorway with the hammer over his knees as he watched the Street of Steel and Kings Landing start to wake up.

 

Men have mocked Gendry when they see him polish steel; they’ve made crude jokes about polishing their swords and told him they’ve fucked their wives with less tenderness. But he knows, he knows that the best results aren’t gained by scrubbing at the steel, but by caressing it and taking your damn time over it. He’s had to bite his tongue more than once before some lord making vulgar jokes about fucking his wife, had to stop himself saying that maybe if the lord treated his wife like Gendry treated his swords, the wife in question wouldn’t be fucking a baker’s boy. But at dawn, as he draws the cloth and the sweet-smelling polish over the hammer’s intricacies, there’s no one to comment on his style.

 

When he’s done, and the hammer is glinting in the sun, he puts it aside again. But this time, it’s against the wall inside, in his eyeline as he works, and he stares at the stag and thinks as he makes the steel sing in time with his strength. _When I hit the steel it sings. Are you gonna sing when I hit you_? He nearly staggers, blames his sudden dizziness on a sun-flash off the steel, keeps on going and tried not to think about the fragile child the memory resurrects.

 

The memories are swirling around him like the snow – how long has it been snowing? He looks down at the hammer, finds that snow has settled on the steel and covered the stag. He brushes it away, gently.

                “Khaleesi!” the cry goes up from the lookout, who is galloping back and skidding all over the place. Gendry reaches out from his own horse, helps horse and rider slow, and the Dothraki rider nods in thanks. Gendry chose to ride with the Unsullied and the Dothraki, and he can’t remember why. Did he want the longer journey; did he want more time to think? The army halts and watches as the Targaryen Queen and the Bastard King rides towards them, ready to join up and complete the long march to Winterfell. It’ll be visible soon, it has to be visible soon.

 

By the time the long column has sorted itself out, arranged itself around the royal party, the light snow has become a half-blizzard. But Gendry finds he is not to be left in peace, because a rider is sent to summon him to Jon. He groans aloud, grateful that the wind covers it, and urges his horse forward. Jon looks more at home in the snow, that giant cloak wrapping him tight. Gendry says as much and Jon laughs, rough and deep while the Queen looks puzzled.

                “My sister made it for me, when I reclaimed Winterfell.” Gendry’s stomach lurches inside him, and he thinks how much she must have changed if she’s sewing cloaks. _I don’t sew very well, I mean. Septa Mordane used to say I had a blacksmith’s hands._ He’d laughed, hadn’t he? Yes, he’d called out to her even though it wasn’t him she was talking to. _Those soft little things? You couldn’t even hold a hammer._ And hadn’t that riled her right up, the little hellcat?

                “Your sister?” he stammers out.

                “Sansa,” Jon clarifies, and Gendry feels himself bump back down. This is it, this is the time he should voice her name, ask about her and find out if she is alive, if she is safe, if she is well. “Not Arya,” Jon continues, his voice warm as he says that name so casually and so carelessly. Gendry would be prepared to swear to all the Gods he knows that his heart just stopped beating.

                “Arya’s alive?” Jon shoots him a curious look, and Gendry is gasping, because that’s her name, the name of the wild girl who offered him – no, don’t think it, don’t think of how it ended, don’t think of how her face looked. “She’s alive? You know where she is? You know she’s well?”

                “She’s at Winterfell.” For one wild, stupid moment, Gendry thinks he might pull his horse around and gallop off into the distance, ride as hard as he can for Winterfell and hang the consequences. “You knew her?”

                “I knew her. I knew her. I thought she might be dead, I thought she’d died somewhere on the road, you say no, that she is alive?”

                “I had word from Sansa some days since, I had word that she was alive –“ Gendry feels like he might explode, anything else Jon might have to say is lost to the roaring in his ears. “Look here, Gendry, aren’t you well?” Gendry grabs him by the cloak, drags him close, so close Jon nearly comes off his horse.

                “She’s alive?” he repeats. Jon nods, and Gendry notices that he’s near-throttling him with the clasp of the cloak and forces his fingers to unclench. Jon rears backwards, massaging his throat and glaring.

                “What in the seven hells is wrong with you?” he demands. “Yes, Arya is alive.” The Targaryen Queen is positively goggling at Gendry, and for a moment Gendry wishes he’d managed to make a slightly better impression. She must think that’s he’s completely insane. She lays a hand on Jon’s arm.

                “What is this? Who is this?” she asks.

                “Damned if I know,” Jon answers her, still glaring. “This is Gendry – he’s Robert Baratheon’s bastard.”

                “The Usurper?” the silver-haired Queen asks, coldly.

                “I am not my father,” Gendry answers. “As you, Queen Daenery’s, are not yours. I don’t want thrones or crowns or royal status.”

                “Well, what do you want?” Jon asks, his throat turning red where the clasp of his cloak dug into his skin. _Arya._

                “A forest lass,” he answers, and with that he spurns his horse round, back on the road to Winterfell. “With your permission, I’ll ride ahead.”

                “Tell Sansa Stark we’ll be less than an hour at this pace,” Jon says, looking at him in a way which suggests he knows, that the coin has dropped and he’s cottoned on. “And Winterfell is the other way, Gendry.”

 

He rides flat out, his horse panting and sweating despite the cold. Soon, as he crests a rise, a castle ringed with a high wall comes into sight, smoke trailing from chimneys and stacks and before the walls. He refuses to let himself think about his action, just keeps up his breakneck pace down the path and up to the gates. He announces himself as a messenger for the King in the North and the Dragon Queen, and the gate guards usher him into the presence of a red-head girl with wolves embossed on her leather cloak straps.

                “My Lady,” he says, bowing, because Gendry has enough manners to pass muster even if they are rough and ready. “My name is Gendry Waters.”

                “My guards informed me you were here as a messenger from my brother Jon?” she asks, and despite the refinement of her tones, Gendry thinks he can hear hints of her wild sister.

                “He asked me to say that he and the Dragon Queen would arrive within the hour.”

                “Thank you, Gendry Waters. I will inform the castle. You may wait here, or I can have someone show you to your room.”

                “May I wait at the gates, for the army?” he asks, his courage suddenly abandoning him. She raises her eyebrows, but does not argue.

                “Of course,” she says, standing gracefully. “I can have them bring you something to eat.” She sweeps out before he can argue, and he’s reached the gate before he realises he’s glad he didn’t. Someone brings him bread and a couple of slices of salted meat, with a mug of hot ale and he waits by the gate as he watches banners and horses resolve out of the snow.

 

Somewhere in the castle, there is the ringing sound of sword on sword as people practise sparring. He wishes he could go and watch, but he’d said he’d wait. A squeaking wheel and fabric rustle immediately behinds him attracts his attention, and he turns to find Sansa Stark approaching and pushing an odd, wheeled chair before her. The pale face and dark hair reminds him forcefully of Arya, but this is quite clearly a boy.

                “Gendry, this is my brother Brandon Stark,” Sansa says, stopping the chair carefully. “Bran, this is Gendry – Jon sent him ahead as a-“

                “Rider, yes.” Sansa presses her lips together, and Gendry gets the impression she’s trying not to smile. Bran fixes Gendry with a look. “Robert Baratheon’s son,” the boy says, his face utterly emotionless. “The bastard who survived the cull.” Gendry goggles at him and Sansa steps forward.

                “Bran is the – the Three Eyed Raven.” That explains literally nothing but before Gendry can do more than squint mistrustfully, horse’s hooves gallop up and Jon Snow dismounts with a flurry of cloak and sword. Sansa smiles, and he rushes at her to sweep her off her feet. “You have a lot of explaining to do,” she says, when he restores her to her feet. Jon makes an impatient motion with his hand and turns to Bran, his face one big smile.

                “Bran,” he says, his voice gentle. “Thank the Gods.”

                “Jon Snow,” Bran says, his voice emotionless. “We must speak soon. But for now, there is one here who would see you.” He holds up a hand, and a Maester appears, wheeling him away at once. Jon gapes after him and Sansa steps up, murmuring something to him. Jon looks shocked, but his face clears. Perhaps the title of Three-Eyed Raven means more to him than it meant to Gendry.

                “Where’s Arya?” Jon demands, as another horse appears, and the Hound jumps down. He lands heavily, with a crash of weaponry and leather. Sansa’s eyes widen and she gasps. The Hound actually _smiles_ at her, actually smiles and looks gentle. He bows to her too, and she smiles too now.           “It’s good seeing you, Ser Clegane,” she says, her smile soft. “Arya, Jon? Why, she’s right this way. But shouldn’t I greet the Targaryen Queen?”

                “She rode back to see to her – dragons. These men can greet the others.” Jon motions to the Unsullied who rode ahead with him Sansa Stark does not so much as blink, she takes it so easily and so well to hear about dragons. Gendry wishes he could be that unflappable. She instructs the guards to take the guests to the Great Hall, where food will be served and the fire is warm, and turns towards an archway.

                “I’ll take you to her, then,” she says.

 

Her dress sweeps the snow, erasing her footprints almost as soon as she makes them. She leads them past two headless Direwolves guarding a door and into a second courtyard. Gendry pauses only a moment, to rest his hammer against the wall, before he turns back as Sansa steps aside and reveals _her._

She’s almost _dancing_ , her movement’s soft and rapid as she ducks and dances around the sword wielded by a blonde woman tall as the Hound. Her own sword is almost invisible as it flicks and flickers and parries the blade. The ring of sword on sword is real though, even though this looks like a scene from a beautiful dream. Arya jumps then, leaps onto a barrel and flips herself onto the blonde’s shoulders, a fine dagger materialising from thin air in her hand and held to the woman’s throat. The blonde lady laughs and Arya smirks, jumping down as smoothly as she arrived there, bowing very properly to the blonde.

                “Always a pleasure to defeat you, Brienne,” she says, sheathing sword and dagger at her waist. Gendry’s throat is tight, tighter than hot leather, so tight it hurts. She’s wearing breeches under her quilted coat, with long boots and leather vest. Brienne laughs, but she’s the first to see them, and she bows at once to Sansa.

                “My Lady,” she says, even as Arya turns. Her pointed face is pale under her long hair, which is tied back in a style that reminds Gendry forcefully of Ned Stark. Suddenly, it lights up and she is running forward, sword swinging at her hip. She launches into the air and lands in Jon’s open arms, her laugh rippling through the courtyard of Winterfell as Jon laughs too, and he might be wrong, but Gendry thinks that Jon might be crying.

                “You got tall,” he says, setting her back on her feet. “Or taller. And a lot better with that sword,” he adds, and she draws it. Gendry recognises her Needle with a jolt. She hasn’t even seen him yet, perhaps he could run for the hills and –

                “Gendry?”

                “Uh – my lady,” he starts, bending into a bow.

 

And then really, anything could have happened, because suddenly he’s on his back in the snow, with the cold metal of the dagger at his throat and a warm weight settling on his midriff, a knee in his shoulder and one on his elbow, and a hand at his neck.

                “Don’t,” her voice hisses, her face dark and beautiful, “call me My Lady.” He realises too late that he’s taken her waist in his hands. He realises a second later that she’s not tense enough to defend. He flips them, and now she is the one on her back, glowering at him. He’s reluctantly impressed to note the dagger’s still at his throat regardless.

                “Arya!” Sansa cries, at the same time as Jon shouts out.

                “Gendry!” He ignores them both, and evidently she does too, because she’s fighting back. She’s drawn her legs up and slams the flat of both feet into his midriff, so hard he can’t catch his breath, she’s on her feet with a foot in his throat and Needle out now, as well as the dagger. Suddenly, she’s been lifted off him completely, the Hound calmly setting her on her feet a safe distance away.

                “Easy there,” he growls at her. “No doubt he deserves it, for leaving you, but would it make you happy? Would it get a name off that list of yours?”

                “You’re still alive then,” she snaps. “And in my way, as ever.”

                “I consider it a duty, at this point,” he answers her, and she manages a smile before pointing Needle at Gendry.

                “I am not your lady, nor anyone’s lady.”

                “That’s fair,” he wheezes, clutching his ribs. “But I’m no lowborn boy, either.” Jon and Sansa are looking between them, Sansa with a suspicious smile and Jon with confusion on his face. He turns to the wall, picks up his hammer and throws it at her feet. The stag between them burns bright in the light of the brazier burning in the courtyard, and she looks from it to him and back again before she kneels. _You couldn’t even hold a hammer._ Which might, once and a long time ago, been true. But now she hefts the thing in her hands as if it weighs no more than Needle.

                “Swords are more subtle,” she says.

                “Hammers are more obvious,” he retaliates, and she grins suddenly, handing the thing back.

                “You left.” It’s not even accusatory, it’s not even angry.

                “I did. Because you were inviting a nobody to be a blacksmith, and I wouldn’t have been able to see you, because you would have been M’lady. But I am no lowborn boy, and you aren’t a lady.”

                “No,” she says. “I am not. That’s her job,” she says, indicating her sister. “I swing the sword, if she gives the order.” Jon straightens up then, his face starting to grow into an irritated expression.

                “Can someone – anyone – tell me what in the name of the Gods is going on here?” he demands.

                “Well, the short answer is that we know each other,” Arya says, gesturing at Gendry – with his own warhammer. “And the long answer is best saved for a cosy fire and a jog or two of good ale.”

                “Now ale, I can get behind,” the Hound announces, clapping her on the shoulder. Gendry thinks her knees might buckle under the combined weight of hand and hammer, but she barely even shifts.

                “The Targaryen Queen is here,” a guard announces, giving up entirely on trying to gain attention in a polite, mild manner.

 

Arya and Gendry walk into the hall side by side, and it takes him a little while to realise they’re humming the same tune.

 

  _My featherbed is deep and soft, and there I’ll lay you down,_

_I’ll dress you all in yellow silk and on your head a crown._

_for you shall be my lady love, and I shall be your lord._

_I’ll always keep you warm and safe, and guard you with my sword._

_And how she smiled and how she laughed, the maiden of the tree._

_she spun away and said to him, no featherbed for me._

_I’ll wear a gown of golden leaves, and bind my hair with grass,_

_but you can be my forest love, and me your forest lass._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope people enjoy the latest, and if you could leave me feedback (whether positive or negative!) I would love it, because feedback is how I improve!
> 
> Also, Caenea on twitter now, and Tumblr!
> 
> https://captain-caenea.tumblr.com/ 
> 
> https://twitter.com/captaincaenea 
> 
> Drop by, share the links, enjoy!


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